Saturday, August 30, 2014

Daan Jippes on Prince & the Pauper

Famous Dutch Comic artist Daan Jippes worked at Disney Animation for a few years on movies like Beauty & the Beast and Aladdin. He also did storyboards and character designs for the 1990 Mickey Mouse featurette The Prince and the Pauper.

These are his story sketches for sequence 2, which shows Mickey being schooled by Horace Horsecollar. Not interested in the lesson at all, he prefers to tease his valet Donald Duck.

Dale Baer animated most, if not all of these scenes.

I don’t know any other artist who draws classic Disney character in a more lively and appealing way.

Every pose is pushed, drawn from interesting angles, full of personality. Daan’s work has the kind of rhythm and flair you see in vintage Disney comics as well as short films. His boards were always a great springboard for the animators.

Look at these tremendous, dynamic poses he drew for a little continuity sketch with detective Mickey.

My best friend is obsessed with Prince and the Pauper. He loves the animated short Disney made when Rescuers Down Under came out. I do have one question for you Andreas. What is your favorite part about being an animator?

Grat post as always. Andreas, are you familiar with the Italian Disney comic book artists? People Like Gian Battista Carpi or Gorgio cavazzano?I do not know if they have ever been involved with any of the animation studios in the US or in Europe (maybe some of them gave lectures at some point) but their work is pretty amazing.

That last one is no sketch (phew!), but a painted comic for the Dutch Donald Duck weekly magazine. The man is in insanely good!I worked with him for a number of years, and I bugged him endlessly about the years in the U.S. He once told me he not only did boards and designs for The Prince and the Pauper, but also some layout, and even one scene animation. I would love to hear your thoughts on that, Andreas. How was that, and did you remember which scene (I recall it was somewhere at the end, at the coronation)?

the word SKETCH has two meanings:-a loose drawing-a comical routine, also known as schtickThe scene you ask about might have been when the Prince-dressed as the Pauper comes swinging through the church just before the coronation.

Detective Mickey Mouse? Hey Mickey, remember when Goofy tried that way back when?... I feel bad for asking since I don't want to be "nosey" but I've seen other animators making films in hopes of bringing 2D back to life and I just wanna know, how's Mushka going? I'm really excited about it ºoº